Sylvia Wynter's Dream

     I see them both on and off over and over again in the same way always, you sitting in the chair, back turned white hair a cloud above your head while carving a piece of wood in the way you usually do, with the radio playing like ambient noise in the background, while she sits in the old metal chair on the veranda looking out at the people that pass by, passing to do their own business, passing because this is the only road that will take them home as some call out to you “mamaaaa!!!”; I see the figures but not your faces, like old pictures marred by time, each time looking the same but always different; because there are times when you scare me and I wake up cold sweats running down my face; heart pounding; shortened breath, and I know that at 3 AM I will not go back to sleep, because I fear that my dreams will continue always the same but somehow a little different, just by the way you so much as try unsuccessfully to speak to me, and I am always brought back to the words not said not just by them but also by me, because for the first death I had fallen into a shock so deep for almost an hour all the words had completely left me and for the second I was simply just not there, because I was on vacation with a woman I still have not introduced to my family, and at this rate I’m not sure that I ever will; because just as the two of your were so remains the rest of the family traditional in all the ways that don’t and should not matter; but what matters is I see you both from time to time, on and off, over and over again in the same way, but somehow always different, it really depends on the memory; and what we’re doing, now you are catering to the family as you always did with an open heart and a warm smile while dark aged hands pass out sandwiches you made for our trip, sneaking bits of fried chicken to the kids for purpose of this memory included me; while he was pointing to street signs, and landmarks like ‘The Church In The Wild Woods’ in Mile Gully as we drive along the country road to see even more family in St. Elizabeth, your white hair like wool, as you look at me with expectant chocolate eyes with a slight blue forming a halo evidence of glaucoma, there’s silence, you’re waiting giving me a chance to answer, while I try desperately to remember what I was taught ; not just then but in all the memories that I see you two on and off, over and over again looking like the grandparents from my childhood, always the same but somehow different; because as time passes, days turn into weeks , turn into years and parts of my childhood memories fade like old photos taken on film the outline remains but although I try to preserve it the color it still fades.